Culture of Engineering Without Boundaries by Gurmeet Bambrah

In a 2008 study James J. Duderstadt has pulled together findings and recommendations of various reports that have been emerging since the 1990s concerning the profession of engineering, technology, innovation and the role played by human and intellectual capital, in changing the nature of engineering practice, research, and education. By drawing heavily from recent studies and informed by the wisdom of several expert panels, the author has concluded that engineering practice in a rapidly and technologically changing world will require an ever-expanding knowledge base shifting the paradigm for engineering research to better link scientific discovery to innovation. Engineers he suggests will need to acquire a much higher level of education, particularly in professional skills such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and global engineering practice. He argues that possession of relevant knowledge, creation of new knowledge, and the capacity to apply this knowledge are now key determinants of the strength of a nation.

Globally, privatization has been releasing telephone, utility and other nationalized companies from state control. Digital technologies such as the internet, audio, video and text-based communications are now available to individual users through their personal computers and hand-held mobile devices. Time and space once stopped replication of monumental structures and the movement of people and knowledge. Monumental integration of spatial and time scales using cyberspace technology within larger and larger systems of great complexity has now blurred spatial and temporal barriers giving rise to Engineering without boundaries. Neither mobility nor accreditation – engineering cultures of a world divided by time and space can withstand the impact of these developments. Consequently globalization and internationalization of engineering – education and practice – are now hot topics in relation to the evolution of this profession.